Annual Black Stallion event promotes reading

The Davie-Cooper City Rotary Club hosted more than 130 first-graders at the Bergeron Rodeo Arena in Davie for its annual Black Stallion event.

To promote literacy, the club rewards students who read Little Black, A Pony with a morning of activities that bring the story alive.

Kids were bused to the rodeo arena, where they moved throughout six stations. They were treated to a demonstration in horsemanship by members of the South Florida Trail Riders Association, who volunteer their horses and time for the event.

Among the activities was a tour of a horse trailer, lessons on sitting on a saddle, the different parts of a horse and how to groom them. Students also got to see how to shoe a horse by a blacksmith.

"Just because these kids live in Davie doesn't mean they have all touched a horse before," said event organizer Nick Coffin.

Coffin, a Rotarian for 17 years and former Homestead Rodeo Association president, worked on arranging this year's festivities with Davie schools for six months. He said one of the more popular parts is when children are given time to read to a horse.

"I've had teachers and parents tell me that certain kids did not read aloud in front of the class because they were too embarrassed but were reading to the horse," he said. "They got over their fear. It's just been a great, rewarding program for us."

Teachers are given books to distribute to their students and lesson plans involving vocabulary and other exercises related to the Walter Farley classic.

During the event, students were treated with a parade of horses and riders decked in various costumes including cowboy, Arabian and Indian attire. The featured attraction is a black stallion riding around the arena.

Following the trip, students are given the second book, Little Black Goes to the Circus. Coffin has seen students leave the event with a newfound love of reading.

"We've gone back to schools in the past and seen such improvement," he said. "This one boy was having trouble reading and needed help. A month later, he was one of the three students who read aloud from the second book to us during a thank you event at one of the schools. You can not believe how rewarding that is."

The Black Stallion Literacy Project was started in 1999 by Farley's son, Tim, and Mark Miller, owner of the Arabian Nights dinner attraction in Kissimmee. The project has a similar program for fourth-graders.